And never forget that Luka made the entire Euroleague his b**** age 18 (Sengun's team actually doesn't even qualify for Euroleague, they play a tier lower in international club play - that "MVP" and Luka's MVP are stratospheres apart) and something tells me he wasn't doing that as a defensive monster...
G League Ignite was a professional team. The players were employed in a specialized field or profession that they received payment for. The league may be a developmental league but the players received a salary playing against G League teams that included professional NBA players. It also had NBA vets on its own roster. The league may be made up of lower tier players or young prospects etc but doesn’t mean it’s not a professional league.
Given that Chicago is likely rebuilding, how about trade Jalen Green + Brooks for Zach Lavine? The salary works with the trade machine below: https://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=2yvfcobq Jalen Green was compared to Zach Lavine when he was drafted as his ceiling so why not try that out and see how it goes?
You can not compare G League with world's best basketball leagues( of course excluding NBA) like Türkiye, Greece or Spain. That was what l emphasized, yes they can get paid, but nowhere near to structured basketball in the leagues l mentioned. Green for the first time plays in a structured basketball where fundamentals,.game plan strategy is more concrete. Where he can not carry on only with athleticism, tunnel.vision.but needs making right plays, right passes. That was my emphasis and l find it stoopid some of our fans still hype about Green. This is his third season, no consistent play yet. I believe in him, but he is not superstar, he is at the moment a role player..
They are pivoting and going younger so they would take a chance on Green and hope that he turns out better than Lavine.
Don’t you think we are exactly the team who should be taking that chance the Bulls are taking? Do we not want better players with a higher ceiling than Lavine on our roster aren’t we dying for just that? Is our roster old and we’re running out of time? Did we just lose in the conference finals or something or are we at the very beginning of our playoff journey with 6 players under 22 years old? Very odd trade to me. Limiting our own ceiling at this juncture for Zach Lavine - who has been untradeable for 1.5 years and is injury prone and is overpaid and is selfish and doesn’t play defense and eats up next summer’s cap space we’ve been tactically preparing 3 years for? And unlike Jalen he’s an actual chucker so young guys will get fewer shots. He’s 3rd string SG in his own team getting paid $40m+ (Derozan, Dosunmu both supplanted him). With all due respect dude, it’s a truly horrible trade for our future. I would rather lose Jalen for nothing next summer than to be holding Zach Lavine’s contract.
Turkey and Greece are not the world's best basketball leagues. Spain is dubious. In truth, no domestic European league is worth a damn, that's why Euroleague just uses the absolute best from each of the countries - and why Besiktas and Sengun would've never played Euroleague. You all say this **** like it means anything when there are very few basketball leagues outside of America that are worth even watching for an NBA fan. As a European you can't bullshit me like y'all do with the Americans. Turkish basketball is like the equivalent of 5th or 6th tier soccer in the UK. Outside of the local team fans, nobody watches that garbage.
Lavine is signed for 3 years 43m and played 25 games last year and is not known as a hard worker. Chicago is on the mediocrity train and has very few moves to get off. To trade Lavine they will have to give up positive assets in the process. They still have too many serviceable players to go full tank mode. Unless they really love Sarr and trade a bunch of future assets to Atlanta, I think they re-sign DeRozan and run it back.
It is not just a matter of being best league or not, or how many people care about these leagues though. There are other considerations. Every game in those leagues matter, there is relegation and coaches don't let you do whatever you want. In g-league nobody cares who wins. This is even true for bottom nba teams because there is no relegation. You cannot see silas ball for two years in any euro team. You don't learn much if there is no consequences. We all talked about the importance of accountability here. Teams like Besiktas play play-off games against top euro teams like Fenerbahce and Efes, compete in europe, play elimination games. These give you a lot of experience at young ages, nothing compared to g-league or playing in thrash nba teams. Besiktas and Sengun are much closer to top level euroleague teams than garbage teams in the nba are to championship level teams. But since there are limited number of spots in euroleague they can't get in. Turkish basketball is not the equivalent of 5th or 6th tier soccer in the uk. A group of local players from the turkish league would make a decent national team, a group of players from even 3rd league in the uk would be crushed in the international scene.
Those are the best leagues in the world as a matter of fact as good basketball nations are not widespread like soccer nations. NBA is a monopoly but that does not mean other leagues are beyond mediocre...good leagues and 1 single great league.
Also the mark of a good league: how many NBA players have been produced out of Turkey. Considering there are no African-origin Turkish players, it’s a very high number for Turkey. The Turkish league is an excellent league. Top 3 or 4 in the world according to anything I’ve ever read. To describe all non-Euroleague teams as being roughly the same is incredibly misguided. Further, imo if Sengun had played Euroleague with Real Madrid’s elite cast of players around him, he would have wrecked teams almost as much as Doncic. You can see him schooling elite euro kids in the youth/international games before he got to the NBA. He had that skill of toying with veterans while he is a teenager in Turkey and even the NBA. I know when I see that skill there’s a special player brewing.
Turkey uses players from balkans or ex-soviet countries with turkish roots as a source for basketball players. Cedi Osman, Hedo, Turkcan, Ilyasova all fit that mold. Regardless those players were developed in turkish clubs and that shows the quality as you mentioned.
Yes I’m aware of that but to be honest only African origin seems to give a significant advantage in basketball athleticism. I say this only to put an asterisk on France’s output of NBA players.
Good Lord, no. Lavine is literally a toxic asset. They will be lucky to move him in a pure salary dump. They may even have to include draft capital to move him.
I'm not sure what this thread is about anymore, and I don't think anyone knows either and all such threads seem to converge to a bust or not discussion which, I don't know maybe isn't a good sign for this team. As for JG, I think the 80% range of outcomes seems to be a #2 - #3 guy in a contender at the top end and maybe an electric scorer off the bench at the lowest end. I don't think the probability of him being a #1 is 0, but definitely not converging to that. I'd also be very surprised though if no other team or coach can make an off-the-bench super dynamic scorer out of him at the very least- do folks really believe he'll be out of the NBA or something unless something drastic happens? That's as unlikely as him turning into Kobe or Jordan imo but I know you guys just like trolling each other here, that's the vibe.
Sam Mitchell was going on and on about Zach this morning on NBA radio about his lack of effort on D. Said he has the ability to be a great defender physically, which he showed on team USA, but in the NBA does not put in the work. And he's the one that drafted him. Big no thank you to Lavine.
If a large part of ClutchFans had its way, our starting lineup next year would be: Lopez Bridges Ingram Levine Sheppard If everyone stayed healthy and had great seasons, we'd be a first-round exit.
I don't think Amen has better handles than Jalen. But it's not as laughable as you think in terms of getting to the basket. Jalen took 287 shots at rim. Amen took 235. But Amen only played about half as many minutes as Jalen. Amen's at rim efficiency is .714, slightly better than Jalen's .692. This doesn't prove that Amen is better at getting to the rim than Jalen. I suspect that many of Amen's at rim shots were off offensive rebounds (148 total, not sure how many of them were turned into close range shots for himself). But still, the numbers at least show that Amen's ability to get to the basket is very good, comparable to Jalen's. And it matches the eye test. A few observations: 1. They both have excellent first step. 2. Jalen settles too much with inefficient outside shooting. Amen knows his shooting weakness and tries to drive first. 3. Defenses give Amen more room because of his lack of shooting and it might actually help him get to start going downhill. 4. Amen has great vision. He sees seams better than Jalen does.
